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Brett Favre admits he was addicted to pain killers; Says quitting was the hardest thing to do

Brett Favre talks about his addiction with pain killers
Brett Favre talks about his addiction with pain killers

When you look at Brett Favre, you see a Hall of Fame quarterback but did you know the Hall of Fame quarterback was once addicted to pain killers and it almost cost him his career? Brett Favre told Graham Bensinger that the prescription painkiller addiction he beat 20 years ago nearly took control of his life.

“I took 15 Vicodin at one time,” Favre said. “Two gave me an effect I liked. After a month, two didn’t do anything, so I’d take three . . . and then four and so on. . . . I knew that 15 was hard to come by. A month’s prescription is 30 pills or something, depending on what they prescribe for you, and I was going through that in two days. I would ask this guy for pills and that guy for pills, after a while I was going back around pretty quickly.”

“I knew what I was doing — I knew that I didn’t necessarily need it but I sure liked the way it felt, and I knew it was wrong,” Favre said.

“I’d hit rock bottom and I said, I’m going to flush these down the toilet. I remember when I poured them in the toilet and it started to flush, I almost crawled into the toilet to go after them because I thought, ‘What in the world did you do?’ I was so dependent on them,” he said.

“I just went cold turkey,” he said. “That was the worst month. I shook every night, cold sweats, it was a constant battle.”

“The one constant through all that was football, and for me, it was a good place to escape,” he said. “It gave me a way to escape but also feel like I was actually doing something good.”

I am glad that Favre talked about it, this is good.  People need to hear these stories.  He is not the only quarterback that was addicted to a drug.  Many have done the same thing, but at least Favre was man enough to speak about it.

Damond Talbot

NFL Draft Diamonds was created to assist the underdogs playing the sport. We call them diamonds in the rough. My name is Damond Talbot, I have worked extremely hard to help hundreds of small school players over the past several years, and will continue my mission. We have several contributors on this site, and if they contribute their name and contact will be in the piece above. You can email me at nfldraftdiamonds@gmail.com

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